Monday, October 14, 2013

Get over Bartman already. He didn't do anything wrong, except spare us the sight of another World Series four-game sweep by New York Yankees!

I
still recall coming home from a late night of work 10 years ago Monday to find
my brother, Chris, a bit irritated.

Some take this thought too seriously

He
was sitting in front of the television watching the National League playoff
game being played that night, and listening to the hysteria of announcers
getting all worked up over what had just happened a few minutes before.

A
FAN A godawful, lowly fan, of all
things, had somehow managed to do something stupid that was costing the Chicago
Cubs a ballgame, and may well shift the momentum of the game to cause the Cubs
to fail to win their first league championship since 1945.

As
it turned out, they were talking about Steve Bartman, who at that point hadn’t
even been smuggled out of the ballpark to avoid nitwitted Cubs fans from
attempting a lynching from the outfield wall.

Yes,
the fans that night were stupid enough that they may well have wrapped his neck
in the ivy and tried dangling him from those outfield walls.

My
brother (who, for what it’s worth, is a New York Yankees fan and was only
interested in the National League playoffs that year to see who the Yankees
would wind up playing against) was disgusted with the announcer hype that was
trying to make it seem as though a lone fan could impact a pennant race in such
a way.

THE
FACT THAT the Cubs immediately committed a series of plays right after that
foul ball that left fielder Moises Alou was unable to catch doesn’t seem to
register.

He wasn't gonna catch that ball!!!

Everybody
wants to blame Bartman – to the point where he has lived his life in seclusion
for the past decade and likely will never go public because there will be some
loser Cubs fan who will think he’s defending the ball club’s honor by harming
him.

Truly
evidence of how pathetic some in our society can be – even though I’m sure
there are those people who are desperate to believe that Bartman actually did
something wrong.

Even
though if you watch the video of the controversial play, all he did was saw a
foul ball headed toward where he was sitting in the stands and he was part of a
scrum of people that lunged to get it.

THE
FACT THAT Alou whined about the fans getting in his way comes across (to me, at
least) as someone looking for an excuse for his own inability.

Would '03 have been '32 and '38 repeat?

As
I recall, Bartman didn’t even get the ball. Some other fan did, and to my
knowledge that person’s identity has never become commonly known.

Which
is why I always thought it was ridiculous when “the ball,” as cursed as Cubs
fans want to believe it is, wound up at Harry Caray’s restaurant, where
somebody rigged it up to an electronic gizmo that caused it to explode into
shreds.

Supposedly,
some of the dust was mixed in with a pasta sauce that was served at the
restaurant as though it were some exotic delicacy – instead of a potential
health code violation that should have warranted the restaurant a fine!

IT
LITERALLY HAS been a full decade since that ballgame, yet I don’t see any
evidence that Cubs fans are willing to let go of the idea that their team
should have been in the World Series that year against the Yankees, rather than
the Florida Marlins (whose third base coach that year went on to lead the
Chicago White Sox to an American League championship and World Series title
just two years later).\

Yes,
our very own Ozzie Guillen, who during his time as White Sox manager could
always be counted on to feed the baseball fire in Chicago by calling Wrigley
Field a dump.

Those
fans who want to live in an alternate fantasy universe probably dream how the
Cubs went on to beat the Yankees – somehow feeding off the fact that Miami
wound up beating the Yankees in the World Series.

They
want to put a significance to Steve Bartman that is totally unwarranted, and
ought to be long-forgotten.

Never sewn to a Cubs' cap

BECAUSE
AS IT turns out, the historic significance of the 2003 World Series had nothing
to do with the Marlins or the Cubs. It wound up being the last World Series
played at the REAL Yankee Stadium.

Although
we didn’t realize that fact until the building was closed for good some five
seasons later.

I am a Chicago-area freelance writer who has reported on various political and legal beats. I wrote "Hispanic" issues columns for United Press International, observed up close the Statehouse Scene in Springfield, Ill., the Cook County Board in Chicago and municipal government in places like Calumet City, Ill., and Gary, Ind. For a time, I also wrote about agriculture. Trust me when I say the symbolic stench of partisan politics (particularly when directed against people due to their ethnicity) is far nastier than any odor that could come from a farm animal.